Trash Compactor
Remember how the Trash Compactor is supposed to be a fast Duel...? Well, we broke it. We broke the compactor. The Duelers were too good. The dianoga was too bad at his job of sucking characters into dirty garbage water. It was three hours before the walls started closing!
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| Happy New Year! |
We're getting ahead of ourselves! Let's start with the good news. It's 2024 and the league is still alive and thriving. We had several younger Duelers at the table, including Spencer, who was making his Dueling debut. What a way to start the year!
Once we got the characters assigned and the Dueler order established, we were off and running. Two very funny and unique things happened at the start of the game. First, Alex A.'s Wicket was the target of early attacks from the dark side shooters. With just two health points left on his Ewok, Alex decided to use Whirling Rocks against Ian's Darth Maul...except Alex rolled a "2-all", killing Wicket!!! I'd like to say we didn't laugh and instead silently mourned our forest friend...but we were definitely laughing.
Second, Jackson pulled off a rare flip/reflip maneuver. The light side was taking damage and Jackson/Mace thought that would be a good time to join the dark side in the middle of the board. But a Spencer/Vader - Jordann/Dooku - Bekah/Morgan alliance repelled the advance and the light side took Jackson back!
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| Is Spencer having fun or is he completely terrified? |
A whole lot of Dueling happened before our first death of the night, easily two and a half hours. But Jordann used Dooku's Force Push to send poor Alex's Leia into a dark side kill box! Alex did nothing wrong, but still died in last thanks to an Athletic Surge from Ian's Maul. Alex has had some rough luck at the start of his Dueling career - please come back, Alex! It gets better!!!
With the dark side having a numbers advantage, they got a bit overconfident. Spencer was feeling it with Darth Vader, and he plunged forward to attack the light side. Unfortunately, he left himself a bit exposed and with very little defense in his hand. A combination of light side hits culminated in Isaiah's Rey using a 4-point attack to oust Spencer in his rookie debut. 11th doesn't sound exciting, but he did great at the table!
Jordann's Dooku moved forward too, determined to damage Isaiah/Rey. But she got a little too cute with her attack order, using a 1-point attack in her first action only to have her Taunt completely blocked with the second action. The light side pounced and Jordann was done in tenth after Riley B.'s Cassian shot her. The walls finally activated too, but nobody was caught underneath them.
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| Surprise surprise! |
Rob/General Grievous slowly realized the Grant D./Lando - Isaiah/Rey combo on the light side was going to be awfully powerful in the end game. He convinced his remaining dark side allies to focus their hits on Rey. Rob managed 11 points of damage on Isaiah, including an unblocked A Fine Addition. Morgan (#witchlady), piloted by Bekah, delivered the final blow and Isaiah was parked in ninth.
Up to this point Riley B./Jyn were having an under the radar game, and Riley had made some pretty sweet moves to set up chaos for the dark side. But his luck ran out when his damaged Jyn couldn't switch her main character status over to a fully healthy Cassian. Once again the #Witchlady took out the trash with an enhanced 4-point attack.
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| I survived Order 66 and all I got was this lousy hat. |
Austin E./Bo-Katan was playing a duck-and-move game, trying to stay out of enemy fire after taking some attacks early in the game. Rob/Grievous and Ian/Maul had a plan to eliminate Austin and then have the walls crush Grant's Lando, but Grant was playing fantastically with the mayor of Cloud City and switched his spot with Rob's Grievous! This put Grant in the safety of the four middle squares on the board while Rob was now in danger of being crushed by walls, as was Jackson's Mace Windu!
The second biggest play of the night was Ian whittling down Austin's Bo-Katan to her last seven points of health, with only one card left in his hand. An undefended Athletic Surge would kill three Duelers...and that's what happened! Austin was gutted in seventh while Rob and Jackson were run over by the walls in a tie for fifth!!
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| The diabolical Ian devising his plan... |
Just like that we were down to four Duelers: Grant/Lando, Ian/Maul, Bekah/#witchlady, and Elliot/Jango. With just one more Dueler needing to die to close the walls for a final time, nobody was willing to move off the center four squares. This was to Grant's advantage, as the other three were working together against him, but he only had to defend himself against Bekah's heavily damaged Morgan. Ian was stuck in the back of that row, and though he had the ability to use an Athletic Surge to move back to a safe square before the walls closed a final time, he somehow convinced Bekah and Elliot to move off the center squares so his Maul could advance on Grant's Lando.
And they agreed to the move!!!
The dianoga, asleep for practically the whole game, finally woke up and did two points of damage on Bekah's Morgan. Elliot was initially devastated, thinking Morgan had died and his Jango would be caught in the moving walls. Then he was relieved - Morgan was still alive!!! Then he went back to devastated when he realized what Ian was going to do...attack Bekah to kill her, causing the walls to crush his fully healthy Jango!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
And that's what happened. The biggest move of the game, executed perfectly. Emphasis on EXECUTED.
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| There's no mercy in Ian's dojo. |
I can't say enough about how well both Grant and Ian were playing. As they were down to the final two Maul had a bit of an advantage, but the dianoga started snacking on Maul, levelling the playing field. Despite Grant's best efforts, he was losing health points. Ian was still holding a Blinding Surge, but playing it might mean they both died, leaving no winner for the Duel! The dianoga then hit Lando twice, leaving him down to his last health point. Ian used one last attack and won the game!!!
This was career victor #14 for Ian, and it also moved Darth Maul into sole possession of second most career wins among the game characters. Who knew we could go five hours in the trash compactor???
Final order of finish:
12. Alex A./Princess Leia
11. Spencer/Darth Vader
10. Jordann/Count Dooku
9. Isaiah/Rey
8. Riley B./Jyn Erso
7. Austin E./Bo-Katan Kryze
T5. Rob/General Grievous
T5. Jackson/Mace Windu
4. Bekah/Morgan Elsbeth #witchlady
3. Elliot/Jango Fett
2. Grant D./Lando Calrissian
1. Ian/Darth Maul
Is there a more terrifying player/character combo than Ian and Maul???
We got some good feedback on playing Friday nights, so we'll try that again for our February match, the Valentine's Duel! Pencil in February 9th, 7PM, until Rob sends out the official invite in a couple of weeks.
Thanks to all who played - what a fun way to kickoff 2024!!!
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